Skin You Later, Alligator Once Near Extintion, Gators Are Now Hissing And Snorting In Bigger Numbers Than Ever On Florida`s Breeding Farms.

April 10, 1988|BY JONATHON KING

LIFE ON THE FARM GETS A LITTLE touchy around summertime for Lawler Wells and his four ranch hands. It`s the season for harvesting -- and the living is dangerous.

The men grab their big metal buckets and head out to gather the crop when the Central Florida sun is at its hottest, the humidity is strangling and the gators are grumpy.

But those eggs -- 3,800 last year -- need to be brought in to incubate and, by gawd, somebody`s gotta do `er.

``It gets a bit tense cause it`s warm and those girls are moving pretty quick in that kind of weather,`` says Wells, the owner of Hilltop Farms in Avon Park, one of the most successful of Florida`s 38 alligator farms.

``The females can be pretty protective of the nests. You`re sweating like mad and climbing through the briers and you hear `em hissing and snorting in there.``

The hissing and snorting comes from gators seven to 13 feet long and ranging from 150 to 250 pounds, each baring a mouthful of teeth and each with a prehistoric disposition to survive.

``When you see the palmetto parting before you see the gator charging, you know you`ve got an aggressive one,`` Wells says. ``Sometimes you just gotta fight `em off by bopping them on the nose with a potato rake.``

Wells has that ``aw shucks, ain`t no big thing`` attitude of a rancher discussing everyday chores. But even after six years at it, he admits that collecting gator eggs isn`t for the fainthearted.

During last year`s gathering season, Wells had six of his ``girls`` all guarding the same nest at once. ``Having to fight off all six -- well, that can get exciting.``

GATOR FARMING IN FLORIDA HAS BEEN a booming industry for the past 10 years, ever since a few enterprising businessmen recognized a growing natural resource.

Alligators had been placed on the endangered list in the late 1960s after being hunted nearly to extinction by those seeking valuable hides. Gator hunting in Florida became illegal in 1961, but poaching remained profitable until 1969, when federal law made the sale of skins illegal.

Freed from the threat of hunters, the gator population rebounded to where the reptiles were snorting and hissing in backyard swimming pools, carports and canals, as development encroached on their natural habitat.

In 1977, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the gator`s status to ``threatened,`` and gator markets -- from restaurants to tanneries -- reopened.

The absence of the American alligator on the legal marketplace had created a huge worldwide shortage for the animal`s valuable hides. The tastebuds of traditional Southerners and adventurous diners swelled the demand for gator meat.

Businessmen like Wells recognized an opportunity. But raising gators was not something one stepped into lightly.

WELLS CRANKS UP THE MODIFIED OLD Chevy pickup he uses as a feed truck for yet another trip to the breeding grounds.

The roof of the passenger side has been cut away to provide a quick entry to the inside from the feeding platform behind. The truck bed is surrounded by a steel railing.

While the engine warms, Wells takes a trip to the walk-in refrigerator for two 40-pound buckets of ground chicken scraps.

Tall, thin-hipped and barrel-chested, Wells could be transplanted on to an Oklahoma cattle range and fit right in. A 50-year-old native of Avon Park, he spent 30 years in the citrus business and does not consider his new venture to be strange. Nor does he take it lightly.

Before climbing into the truck, he tosses a long-handled shovel in back. ``May as well take a weapon, just in case,`` he says.

On 70 acres located a couple of miles off U.S. 27 just north of Lake Okeechobee, Wells has invested $740,000 to create a swamplike playground for his 650 breeding animals and to construct hothouse holding pens where he raises more than 8,000 gators -- on today`s market worth $1 million.

In seven fenced breeding areas, he has dug a series of twisting canals lush with palmetto, slash pines and high grasses. A sophisticated irrigation system keeps the ponds at specific water levels.

It is here that the breeders, all more than 6 feet long and stocked in the ponds at different female-to-male ratios, lounge in the water, sun themselves on the banks and, and when spring rolls around, procreate.

But their favorite activity is eating. And at Hilltop Farms, they eat very well.

``They can tell when the feed truck is pulling in,`` Wells says. ``You drive something else in here they`ll hide, but you can barely get the feed truck through the gate before they come running.``

On a warm day in summer, Wells has to keep his feet moving and play a few tricks to keep the hungry gators from crowding around the first of several feeding spots. He`ll dump 40 pounds of chicken or catfish scraps at the first spot and then quickly drive to the other side of the ponds to pour out the next load.

It`s only on chilly days, when the cold-blooded gators turn docile and their metabolism slows, that Wells has to bang his bucket on the plywood feeding platform to arouse their appetites.